Are You Able to Crack It? The Overlooked Netherlands Creation That Forged the Contemporary World
One can find numerous contenders to claim the designation as “world’s most significant innovation.” The wheel. The printing press. The combustion motor.
According to a recent publication, though, that honor should go to the automated sawmill invented through Dutch inventor Corneliszoon van Uitgeest in 1593.
“Before automated sawing, constructing a simple trading ship required approximately ten sawyers working for 90 days,” writes Jaime Dávila. “Using wind-driven sawmills, an identical amount of processed timber could be manufactured in less than a week.”
Thanks to this rapid automated cutter, that turned logs to planks with virtually no manual labor, the Dutch could build vessels faster compared to anyone else, an advantage that unleashed one hundred years of Netherlands naval, financial as well as cultural dominance across Europe and the world.
The First Genuine Industrial Device
Corneliszoon’s lumber mill, argues Dávila, represented “humanity’s first true factory apparatus.” A windmill turned a gear. One component transformed the rotary motion into vertical action to power the cutting blade. Another component transformed the spinning motion into a sideway’s motion feeding the log to the cutter. A geared mechanism moved the wood forward a measured step each cycle.
“Every component was modest by itself. Corneliszoon’s genius was to integrate them in order that the machine operated in a precisely synchronized sequence, cutting with each descending motion and moving on every return motion. This constituted a remarkably clever use of basic components.”
Which leads us up to the current puzzle. I’d like you to reinvent a key the basic concepts underpinning this historic invention.
Circular to Vertical
Design a mechanism which converts circular motion to vertical action. Your available these components exclusively: A spinning wheel. Two pegs. Two bars. A “sleeve”, which is a cylinder or sleeve into which one of the bars can slide snugly. (Consider that you can mount components on a base, so that the components don’t fall down.)
The solution returns later today UK time with the answer.
In the interim, PLEASE NO HINTS. Instead, please propose (less celebrated) candidates as the world’s most impactful invention.
